Supposed to be the smart ones, too, but they keep falling for that “I thought you were supposed to be the tolerant ones” horseshit.

What about dialogue?

Dialogue is for reasonable people acting in good faith. Dialogue is between two acceptable positions. “Taxes need to be raised” vs. “taxes need to be lowered” is grounds for dialogue. “Taxes need to be raised” vs. “Jews should be thrown in ovens” is grounds for a beating.

But isn’t this sinking to their level?

That depends. After you punch the Nazi, do you espouse the tenets of National Socialism?

No.

Then you’re better than a Nazi.

But doesn’t this just give the other side ammunition?

The other side in this argument are lying fucks who can twist any piece of information into a swastika-shaped balloon animal if you engage them in good faith; lacking a piece of information, they’ll just make shit up. Might as well punch a Nazi.

What about peace, love, and understanding?

Great goals, and once we get rid of the Nazis we can get to work on them. All three are completely impossible when Nazis are about.

When should you punch a Nazi?

Whenever you get a chance. Preferably when they’re not looking.

What if they’re smaller than you?

Hit them with your fist.

What if they’re bigger?

Hit them with a bat.

Isn’t this a slippery slope?

After we defeated the Nazis in World War II, did we keep shooting people or did the troops come home and start having babies?

The second thing.

There you go. The slippery slope argument is nine times out of ten bullshit. Human beings are good with slippery slopes: we build stairs.

What if you think you’re punching a Nazi, but you just hit a white guy with a shitty haircut?

Run.

What should you do if you hit a Nazi?

You should run then, too. Don’t get me wrong: punching Nazis is still illegal. We’re discussing morality.

But I don’t want to punch anyone.

Then get off your duff, mister, and give aid and support to the boys folks on the front lines. We’re all in this together. Again.

Edit: If you liked this, then why don’t you hit the Donate Button? If you didn’t, I don’t care; please don’t leave a comment.

Back in the eighties we punched nazis all the time. Mostly after they punched us, usually when we were outnumbered. So it’s nice to see the youth have learned to strike first. Zero tolerance for nazi scum!

I knew a veteran of Anti-Nazi League action in Britain. He said they used to throw lucozade bottles at Nazis. Because when they broke, the sticky lucozade stuck broken glass to the Nazi, and he cut his hands trying to brush it off.

So, here’s the thing. I’m a woman. I’m organizing on the front lines, including directly against R. Spencer. I’ve shared this post in numerous places because it think it’s great. And you are leaving me out… at this point, on purpose. I’d appreciate you’d leave your hypothetical “sentient quadratic equations” out of it and include the rest of us who are actually doing the work. You can replace it “those on the front lines” instead.

Look. I’m not gonna wait for a literal bruise on my face to put a few on my knuckles. I’m too angry (and too pretty) for that. They’ve already spray painted swastikas on the HUC sign, and sent bomb threats to JCCs, and that’s good enough for me to start swinging.

In the context of suckerpunching, a fair punch is where the target is aware that he or she is in a fight.

See I hate suckerpunchers with a passion that’s right up there with hating Nazis. Somehow this happened whilst waiting for the steel plates and screws to do their job holding my face together over two months.

Whilst googling how to blend food to fit through a straw, I came across many a similar tale, of coward scum who bravely assault their unaware victim and then run off.

I have also been on an anti Nazi march, Anti Nazi League Carnival Against The Nazis May 28th 1994 Brockwell Park London.

Here and there in the crowd of peaceful marchers, obnoxious scum taunting the Police, safe from arrest in the crowd. Taught me a valuable lesson.

Just cause someone hates a Nazi, doesn’t exclude them from being a total pr1ck themselves. Stay classy people.

“See I hate suckerpunchers with a passion that’s right up there with hating Nazis”

^I sincerely hope that you are only talking about your emotional response, and not your actual opinions? I can fully understand the former, since what has happened to oneself tends to elicit the strongest feelings. But if this is your actual thought-over moral opinion, then you are way out of line.

I think this post is out of line – even if you’re partly joking. Violence against others is NOT OK — unless you are fighting in a war or defending yourself (or another person)

I’d hit a Nazi (and a lot worse) in war or self-defense, but if you start hitting people whose views you don’t share (no matter how hateful), you’re harming the value that make us different from Nazis.

Yes, and punching Nazis is the only way to stop them multiplying to the point they get real power.

See, we stopped punching Nazis about 10 years ago, and now they are in power!

Of you let them get power through hate speech, and wait until they strike the first blow, you’ll basically wait until they sign a law that outlaws you or another group, and uses the state to destroy you or whoever, and at that point, punching isn’t going to be enough. If they send a SWAT team to take you to the internment camp, as “their” first violent act, it is too late for 99.99% of people to resist effectively.

Cowards who send mobs will rarely throw any punches. But they still have you killed just as dead without you ever having a “self-defense moment”. If you hit anyone, it would be the officer “just doing his job”, which won’t help anything except for letting the Nazis in power use you as an example that justifies his action.

This is getting long, but the point is: punch Nazis, or anyone calling for the killing of others based solely on their shitty prejudices.

The extreme Left and the extreme Right did their little slamdances in the streets of the German Weimar Republic for 14 years.

Undoubtedly, at the outset the extreme Left was not only assured of the unassailable righteousness of their cause, but certain of victory. So certain that they had no reservations about “heightening the contradictions” with acts of street violence.

When the dust settled, the victor in that struggle was the most extreme faction of the extreme Right. Perhaps their most famous fight song was an appeal to avenge one of their early casualties, Horst Wessel.

That historical example has no business being recycled in this country. By either the Left, the Right, by some undifferentiated “just want to see the world burn” faction of nihilists, by Christian theocrat nutcases, or by anyone else. The entire planet is facing crises, but the USA itself is still in a position to have the resources and national will to get the planet and its human inhabitants through them. Americans have no business re-imagining the polarizations of Germany in the 1930s as a productive model, from any point of view. It’s a model to avoid. That’s the instructional value.

This is not the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic was a government formed after its previous one was dismantled after losing the greatest war anyone had seen. The previous government was a hypermilitarized state which had been described as “an army with a state” 150 years before, and had only grown in stature and strength since. Liberalism – meaning the parliamentary system of the republic – had been forced on them. I think, certainly, it would be reductionist to state that Hitler and the far right won solely or mostly because the militarized autocratic nationalism was part of the “German culture” or any such but regardless it must be noted that many in the Weimar Republic had lived through Bismarck’s tenure and the Franco-Prussian war and many people of influence and power supported it and longed for it.

In the United States we have our own institutions which, while gravely flawed in many aspects, are pretty fuckin far from those of the German Empire. The type of fascism and racial violence – this man has literally, openly advocated for genocide of black people – advocated for by Richard Spencer is not going to be elected. We’ve probably got the most right wing authoritarian nationalist president we’ll get in the forseeable future. Spencer’s racial violence is taking place, imo, on an institutional level through things like mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and political and police corruption and/or violence, but while we fight that fight we cannot let it happen in the streets. We’ve already failed at that to some extent – check how many black teens have been shot by white drivers for playing their music too loud in a parking lot (or by police, but hey). It has to be known AT LEAST that if someone like Richard Spencer openly declares intent to do things like this if he can get away with it (which many have), he won’t feel safe in public. Because if Richard Spencer feels safe in public after openly declaring his desire or intent to murder someone for their race, even not a specific target, that means that it is not safe for anyone who could be a target, which is his greatest victory.

This is not a street war in Weimar. As happy as he may be about the result of the election, Richard Spencer is not in the White House or Congress. Their political wing does not really act for them, is not ideologically driven like them, it acts in self-interest. Richard Spencer’s political power will grow from the streets. It will grow from being able to give a nice lil speech at the local university. Those types of things will encourage affinity groups at universities. And on. Partly because our institutions have not taught people to think in ways adjacent to their ideology, they do not have the mass support needed to sustain a street war, yet. There are no Prussian veterans who miss Bismarck here. There is no National Socialist Party winning seats in a proportional vote parliament. The average Trump voter doesn’t read Breitbart – but he might, if Breitbart could host a music fest in the public park. All this to say this is not an all out street war with organized brownshirts, its making sure dumbass dork nazis with masters degrees in philosophy can’t spout their bullshit with impunity. Richard Spencer simply does not have the institutional or popular support to be compared with the far right agents in the Weimar Republic, even before Hitler’s rise.

Also, more than anything, what the failures of the left in the Weimar Republic mean to me is that it is imperative to win. There is nothing in the nature of the far right that makes them better at street wars – the left could have won in Germany, if it had done better. However – to push this home again – older, trained, militarized conservative German Imperial Soldiers and their sons being so plentiful and powerful in the Republic played a fair part in tipping the scales right, and we don’t have that here.

Yeah, fuck that.
Nazis don’t shout slogans – they shout INTENT.
The First Amendment protects me when you use ‘Fighting Words’ – provoking violent response and being met with violence? It’s covered and Constitutional.
By stating that ethnic cleansing should take place – he’s already said something worth a sock in the mouth.
Invoking the Nazis and the Reich? In the city where heroes from that war are buried? To a son of a soldier and great-nephew to a hero of D-Day?

Every…read this Jeff — EVERY NAZI deserves to be punched and met with VIOLENT rebuttal. Or we roll over and welcome a new Reich.

The implication is that nonviolence is non-action, and that’s particularly abhorrent when nonviolence has been so effective in many movements of the last century. I think many people also conflate love with tolerance. Love doesn’t tolerate bad behavior. It just acknowledges that person doing the behavior is a person, not the behavior, nor the belief, nor the alliance. Responding with love doesn’t mean you’re not pissed off either.

This piece posits that if you’re not going to punch a Nazi, you’re not on the front lines, you’re just supposed to support the people on the front lines. But I will not support or condone violence against another human being, beyond what is necessary to keep them from being a harm to themselves or others. It’s irritating that people have come to believe that nonviolence and love are the same as apologism, tolerance and inaction.

love this. I really do. I just wish there was an honest amendment to it that addresses “what if I’m a black or brown person and fear a cop will shoot me instead of just throw me in a paddywagon.” I don’t expect a yes no answer. Although maybe you just shouldn’t bc that’s a r e a l possibility. But an acknowledgment of the privilege of a white guy to be able to commit assault in broad daylight would make me feel like this current wave of antifas is more inclusive and mindful than what at least I’ve been part of in the past. It’s abt more than rage and retribution. I’m interested in what you think abt it!

It’s legit to be afraid of the personal consequences. There are plenty of us happy to finally be able to use our white privilege for something good (and easy, to be honest) who will land a blow or two in your name.

I might not punch a Nazi myself (one that was doing nothing wrong other than passively standing there holding his or her ideology to his or her self), but I can promise you if said Nazi got punched in my presence and the police asked me about it, I would have been curiously absorbed in tying my shoes at the time of the incident and remember absolutely nothing about it.

There’s a wide between vigilance and paranoia that has no business being elided.

Richard Spencer was not advocating for the Jews of this country to be rounded up and shipped to concentration camps at the time he was blindsided. He was doing a snoozy exposition on what he imagined to be the mediagenic value of copping a cartoon frog for propaganda purposes. That isn’t threatening; that’s pathetic.

Now Richard Spencer has a higher media profile than he would ever have received otherwise, with what I think is an objectively reasonable claim to sympathy. For all practical purposes, the guy who hit him couldn’t have done him a bigger favor if he had been in league with him. Which I wonder about, without drawing any conclusions. In the interest of vigilance, not paranoia.

Richard Spencer already had a huge platform within the neo-Nazi subculture – he’s the guy who rebranded it into the alt-right in the first place. He has actively & famously espoused his perceived values in racial cleansing (particularly against black people) & has incited violence with his words on a wide scale.

Spencer has already said and done plenty to deserve to have a long queue of people waiting their turn to tune him up. Just because he wasn’t espousing the slaughter of innocents at that moment doesn’t mean he hasn’t done it before.

Point being, he’s a nasty little Nazi who deserves to get busted in the mouth. And more importantly, he now knows that the more he spews his Nazi nonsense in public, the higher the likelihood that he’s going to get a bust in the mouth every time he shows his face in public. If he ends up too afraid to set foot outside, I’m fine with that. At some point, one hopes he’ll learn the lesson that “Wow! People REALLY aren’t on board with this whole being a Nazi shithead thing. Maybe I was wrong all along?” (Which I admit would require a level of introspection I don’t think he’s capable of.) If he learns that being a Nazi shithead won’t be tolerated at all, and he shuts his oozing piehole, I’m good with that too.

At this stage in the game, it’s about getting their message out. Remove their ability to deliver said message (in Shia’s case, by upping the literal signal to noise ratio), then most of them become harmless. Another example is stink bombs, although those are less legal.

Punching can play into their narrative and make their message stronger. Shouting them down removes their ability to deliver their message, or provokes them into taking the first swing, in which case, punch away.

The rise of polarized extremes of the Left and Right did more to enable the rise of Adolf Hitler than all of his speeches put together.

Richard Spencer was on a slow train to media oblivion. Hopefully, he still is. But if this sort of shit keeps up, he and his ideas are guaranteed a higher media profile.

Speaking of media profiles, my suggestion for the elements of the American press that have been baited by Trump is to refuse to run any photos of him. Obviously, Trump and his actions need to be covered as a story. That doesn’t mean he deserves to get his picture in the paper.

TotD, if it were Amy Goodman or Michael Moore who got sucker-punched, would you really indulging in the same apologism? Because this is not about who got hit. It’s about having a reasonable expectation of safety when expressing a controversial view in a pubic space.

The video of that event didn’t just depict “Richard Spencer.” That was also anybody who ever took the risk of pubic speaking without a phalanx of police around them. And reacting as if it’s okay to sucker-punch someone based on a personal judgement of their political beliefs is a slippery slope that doesn’t serve the cause of justice. It serves the “cause” of blood feuds. That spiral into the abyss.

You haven’t exactly distinguished yourself as a jurist on this one, TotD.

1) You missed my point entirely: this isn’t about the propriety of who does or doesn’t deserve to get blindsided at a microphone.

But, you think it is. Big mistake.

2) I’m not sticking up for some lofty abstraction here; it’s of dire practical importance that there be one standard of judgement on incidents like this. Herbert Marcuse would undoubtedly disagree, but Nat Hentoff and Gerry Spence would not. And I’m with them, not him.

3) Am I ever glad that the assailant appears to be a white guy. A black guy doing this would have iced the cake, in terms of right-wing propaganda value (and how they thrive on milking these incidents, for every last drop. )
Didn’t happen that way, thankfully.

3) Because I’m familiar with the provocateur tactics of the fascist Right in Italy in the late 1960s and 1970s, as of now I think it’s entirely possible that Richard Spencer staged his own punch-out. I note that there’s a lot of theater going on presently around the hunt for the attacker. My suspicion about the likelihood that this was a provocateur publicity stunt will remain until the attacker is apprehended and positively identified. And I’ll be alert for smoke screens and false trails. The neoNazis have been up to a few tricks in that regard already, I’d say. Based on my readings of their sites (how I hate to go down that disgusting rabbit hole…)

4) This is no game for the unsophisticated. Get educated. If this is provocateur activity, I doubt that it’s state-sponsored, the way in was in Italy in the 1970s, when the Italian secret services were in league with groups like the Avanguardia Nazionale and Ordine Nuovo to prime the pump of violence and hang it on the Left. But some of the American NeoFash people undoubtedly understand the advantages of such ruses. Everyone on the Left needs to know how they can get played by this strategy.

5) Tread lightly; step slowly; don’t go for the okey-doke. I’m seriously glad that the Richard Spencer attack seems to be getting little play in the press. He doesn’t deserve an iota more press than he warrants.

6) My suspicions that Spencer set the attack up himself are only suspicions, not conclusions. My point is that any unprovoked assault like this one works to the benefit of the political faction being attacked. I don’t think it’s a bit heroic to sucker-punch someone and run into a crowd. If you’re in a situation where you conclude that confrontation is necessary, it’s much more clarifying to get in the face of these people with words and stand your ground- and then if they swing on you, what happens after that is a different story than simply taking someone unawares with a punch and run.
I don’t advocate violence. It’s a last resort of self-defense. But I’ve confronted people when I felt I had to do it, braced for whatever might happen next.
If necessary. May it never be necessary again.

What Spencer espouses isn’t a “Controversial” POV, it’s an anathema to civilized people and civilization. It’s unacceptable, at any and all levels. Germany has the right idea about all things Nazi. Unacceptable at any level and throw your butt in jail for promoting it in the slightest.

Nazi are to be legaly regconized as a domestic terrorist organization so that any law abiding citizens can legally take action to protect themselves and our country from domestic terrorist violance and the proliferation of any terroristic act on peacful law abiding citizens and there property.

if it helps New Enthusiasts, i like to do all six, not necessarily at the same time (though i wouldn’t be averse to that), and repeat in a different order. lately, i’ve been doing the fifth, then the first, then the fourth, then the second. whatever has been a good follow up to these as a whole.

now that i think about what i’ve been doing lately, leaving out the leaving? which could be construed as leaving? i guess i do all six. in different order-like.

How are we going to stop the actually-existing revanchist conservative movement in America that now controls essentially all branches of our government? Punching Nazis isn’t wrong; it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It has no tactical or strategic connection to any meaningful left-wing progress. People fixate on it because we are weak. So skip the snark; we don’t have anything to be joking about. We are losing terribly.

Scrolled all the way down to leave a comment, have bookmarked this page and keep coming back to it. Glad to see more about your blog. Rock on, stay inspired, I will be following and would love to connect.

Let’s see with our eyes,
These things our hearts have seen
And know the truth must still lie
Somewhere in between
-Robert Hunter

good Lord, my Tumblr‘s been bad enough, but my Facebook has been ON FIRE with liberals more liberal than even me angsting over the possibility of Nazis being punched.

But fuck me, the handwringing liberal apologists on facebook. Holy shit, it makes arguing with LessWrong readers and neoreactionaries seem a productive use of one’s time.

Note that these are not just sealions, but actually very liberal people I like and hugely respect, and I completely understand where they’re coming from and strongly support the value of discussion and debate of ideas, and it pains me the extent to which I have to restrain myself from just banging my head on the keyboard asdfadsfadfasfdsa fdsafdsa fdsafdsa and type polite versions of “what the arsing fuck are you bleating about you cockwomble.”

jfc, I posted about that time literal nazis were literally firebombing the fucking building I was in at the time (I lived next door to an anarchist bookshop; the firebomb didn’t work, fwiw) and I’m then asked to take seriously the Nazis’ stated objections concerning “white genocide” as some sort of comparable fear to their stated and previously-actioned aspirations of not-made-up genocide.

Literally the point of Richard Spencer is to play respectability politics as a gambit. “We haven’t bricked any windows for over a week now, we’re just here to politely discuss ideas on whether Jews are really human, which is literally a topic we’re here on CNN to discuss as if that’s up for debate!”

I’m all for a bit of applied respectability politics. I used to go to anti-Nazi protests in the 1990s wearing a suit and tie, because presentation is important. I had short hair then too. everyone else on my side was a smelly anarchist or commie, the police got so confused. But it’s one fabulously useful technique, not the goal. You can say any horrifying bullshit if you dress up and talk nice, as Richard has previously demonstrated.

Now i know why Mao got so pissy about “fucking liberals”. AND I AM A FUCKING LIBERAL! A middle-aged white cis bloke, with privileges out to here! My ideology is pissweak! “What do we want? A moderate and balanced social democracy with both markets and a safety net! When do we want it? When it can be brought forth in a sensible and workable manner!” Why am I suddenly some sort of firebrand. What happened.

[note to Australians: that’s a fucking liberal, and most certainly not a fucking Liberal. Just to be absolutely clear on that one.]

When did saying “Actually … Nazis are BAD” become controversial: when people started fighting back and it made white men feel a bit uneasy.

oh, I didn’t note: if liberals wanted the absolute minimum unit of applied violence, to the absolute maximum of effect … then punching Richard Spencer in his putrid Nazi face, there, then, on camera, where it could be memed to the hilt, was literally complete success. This was the right punch on the right Nazi at the right time.

best comment I’ve seen on a punch video: “I denounce and reject the use of violence in political disputes. Now excuse me while I play this on repeat for ten hours.﻿“

Not quite the usage in that cartoon, but as I’m using it there: querulous inane shitheads who just want to ask you a polite and civil question and aren’t actually listening to your answer. And also there’s a thousand of them. Achieved currency during Gamergate, from eggs on Twitter.

Once when I was young, I took a particularly large dump and I thought it resembled the countenance of a sea lion. I called the whole family in, pre-flush, to witness my fecal pareidolia. From then on, our family used the moniker to refer to solid excrement. I feel like it could feasibly be transitive.

You guys just can’t even pretend for a second that you don’t want to just physically assault people you disagree with. The regressive left makes the right stronger every single day. “There’s no enemies to the right” as you tear each other apart over verbal disagreements. When the definition of “nazi” just becomes people who aren’t completely onboard with your ideology, you’ve opened the door to all kinds of conflict of interest and mob rule. If anything, it is these types of leftists that will encourage the state to stifle free speech, turning thoughts themselves into hatecrimes. Rest assured, by setting a precedent of justified assault because of beliefs, it will be used against you, over and over again.

Honestly, shut the fuck up. This is the stupidest, most cliched, Reddit-comment-level bullshit that exists. There’s no such thing as the “regressive left,” but congratulations on coming up with a word that rhymes with “progressive” and sounds scary.

The guy who got punched wasn’t a “Nazi.” He was a Nazi, and if you think Nazism is an ideology like any other, then you can suck my circumcised cock.

Go stick your head in a gas station toilet, and fuck Donald Trump and his family.

“Nazis get punched. Stop this or I’m banning you. I see what you’re doing.”

Jeez Louise Alexander. What I was doing was trying to achieve a more nuanced understanding of Alexander’s views. If you think I was trying to do something else feel free to share, for I don’t know quite what it is.

But if it is simply my trying to achieve a more nuanced understanding of someone’s views that you think ban-worthy then I can only count by being banned as my gained.

I don’t believe I wronged anybody in this post, but I respect your property. :/

The due process is this: Are they advocating the mass murder of people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability status, or other bigoted reason? If yes, then they are a literal Nazi; if it is safe for you to do so, you have the right, the privilege, and the DUTY to punch their fucking lights out, or to curbstomp their faces. When people who literally want to commit mass murder of groups of people they don’t like feel safe enough to talk openly about these beliefs, then they will also feel safe enough to act on these beliefs, as proven by the Portland stabbing, and so it is our duty to make them feel unsafe and crawl back into their hidey-hole for the safety of all the people they want to murder.

If you find something disagreeable with that, then you have no fucking conscience.

What process for determining that this particular person desires the death of people he or she does not like?

Whatvyou have privided are factors which must be met to be guilty of a crime. That is all well and good. But you have not indicated any due process for determining whether these factors apply in the case if a particular suspected nazi before that person is punched (or worse). (You must see the drawback in the process beung no more than ‘he looks like a Nazi to me’ — the subjectivity if that could give cover to anyone punching anyone they wished )

What process do you propose? What process do you think it is due?

I said “quack” earlier because you ‘duck’-ed the question and I had not gotten ti your last comment. Here you seem to have a serious intent to address my question of process. I respect that, notwithstanding that what you did was address factors of a crime rather than a process of determining whether these factors apply. Of course what process is due depends on what you intend to do as a result of your determination. If your intent is to disadociate or scold, a rather slack process is due. If it is to punch, a stricter process us due. If it is ti use a weapon (e.g. a bike lock) then even a stricter process is due — not only for the sake of this suspect, but because we don’t want to make slack the means by which someone might seek to justify (honestly or just before the eyes of others) an assault.

My interest is piqued when the outcome is more than shunning or speech, or even boycot or efforts to get someone fired, but assault, for the reasons I listed above (some of which you might aporeciate). Perhaps the process for you involves observing nazi insignia. For another it might simply be the wearing of a “make america great” hat. For yet another it might be the wearing of a red hat.

I worry that for some it may be protesting a reasonable grievance (not all protests of things that are opposite of one’s own side are unreasonable) alongside another (lets say a self-identified neo-nazi) because they happen to be in proximity with each other because both happen to be protesting a common grievance (this can happen) despite the fact that the one fellow shares none of the nazi sympathies if the other. This I suspect (rightly or wrongly) is occuring an increasing rate.

I am interested in which (if any) of these cases you would suspect someone of being a Nazi to a degree that would tempt you to assault — or whether you see this as continuum on which you might give an example where you would draw the line. If you would like to discuss that I would be interested.

But what I am pressing for is what process you think is due to help would-be assailant to limit themselves in such a way to avoid false positive.

(Even a private star chamber provides some checks than purely indivudual accuser-judge-executioner vigilantism affords. (By ‘executioner’ I mean the one who executes the punishment, which can range from a punch to lethality).

Alex: Please forgive my delay in response. I have been moving back to Canada following two decades in Hong Kong and things have been as crazy as you might imagine.

And I apologize for the length (and perhaps repetitiveness) of my last comment. I am typing this on my cell phone which does not allow easy revision. You replied to me seriously, so I wished to reply to you seriously and not flippantly.

I’m perfectly fine with people merely disagreeing with me. And normally I’m a pacifist. But I draw the line at people disagreeing that I have a right to live. As proved by the Portland stabbing, these people literally and without exaggeration want to murder every single person they don’t like, people they’ve never met, just because they’re fucking bigots. These people ARE. LITERAL. FUCKING. NAZIS. You know, people who want another holocaust of Jews, gays, trans people, non-white people, etc., just like fucking Hitler. If keeping them in line involves some brave souls punching their fucking lights out every time they step outside, then I’m all for that, and if you’re not one of them, then so should you.

If you think someone who literally wants me dead because I’m bisexual (or any other similar bigot reason) deserves to be protected from the consequences of their hatred, then you’re siding with wannabe murderers and genocidal maniacs. You are siding with a violent enemy, which makes you my enemy as well, which means that if I ever meet you in person, I will fucking curbstomp your face, motherfucker.

Furthermore, it’s because of morons like you calling Obama a “communist socialist Nazi Muslim” for eight years that we can’t fucking talk about the very real, literal, actual, honest-to-God Nazis coming out of the woodwork like the cockroaches they are (all apologies to the noble cockroach) without people thinking we’re exaggerating. Go pull your head out of your ass, you worthless sack of shit. We’re not talking about nazis in the sense of “feminazis” or “people who disagree with us,” we’re talking about literal, “Heil Hitler! Kill the Jews and the queers and the blacks!” type Nazis.

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether they’re evil, disadvantaged, had difficult upbringings or are merely ignorant and misguided. Nazis, neo-Nazis, Fascists, and their modern incarnation, the ‘alt right’, actively endanger the rest of us and make the world a worse, more miserable place.

Regardless of who they are or what made them the disfigured monsters they became, we’d be better off without them. If we have to share a planet with them, they should live in mortal terror that we’ll at least hurt them, ideally wipe them out, if they step out of line even an inch.

The problem here is that “punching nazis” stops short. Nazis can take punches, they like punches, they think getting punched makes them correct. What’s better? Make Nazis cry. Make Nazis lose their jobs. Make them lose their children. Get them kicked out of their apartment without the damage deposit.